ExInnocent
by amandark
Summary: A re-telling of Trigun from Vash's point of view. [Violence, language; fluff, yaoi; angst, drama. Manga based-- this is an interpretation, with a few added scenes. :P R&R!]
1. one

––A manga-based retelling of _Trigun_, from Vash's POV. Fluff, angst and yaoi later on– this fic is more of an interpretation with a few added scenes, NOT a translation. (Reviews keep me happy!) Trigun under Nightow, not me.

Ex-Innocent: one.

I love this song– it's a classic. A real easy tune, not all that fast, but I wouldn't call it slow, either. There's two guitars, an' if you listen real close you can pick one from the other. Most people I ever sat down with (through this song) say "Well that sure is some fine guitar!" and I always felt obligated to give the second one credit. The geezer's know; it's an older band. There's some mellow drumming, and sometimes they use the really classy stuff– I've heard a number of theirs with a flute in it once. And then there's the singer: Eddy Sands. His voice is rough, like a man who's enjoyed a cigar or three in his lifetime; gnawing the brown stick and numbing his tongue against it... but it's nice that way. I like the coarse-paper tone and the easy curve of his vowels. I don't care much for the lyrics– never have– but it's still a nice listen.

"_Mom_. Buy me a gun."

"And _what_ are you holding in your hand right now?"

"_No_, a real air gun would be _cooler_!!"

Looking at her, I think the kid's mother doesn't appreciate the dart gun he's got already– his father probably got it for him, no doubt considering the tick of annoyance in her eyes. I'm glad for it, though. A gun of any kind is an awful thing to possess.

"Sir, here you go!"

I recessed my attention from the woman and her son, smiling as best I could manage. It was meant for the waitress, but I think it may have been facing the food. She's busy. Cute, too– but I didn't realize it until she had left. I don't mind. Digesting steak takes concentration, anyway. It's not bad– the sauce is good; on the mashed potatoes too. Potatoes are probably one of Gunsmoke's most abundant organic product. It grows in dirt, and that's _all_ we have. It's kind of like the cockroach of crop... but better tasting.

I can't help but gaze toward the window, slender with thin frames whose white paint had since toned itself like muted dust. The yellow pastel curtains framed it like a sweet-and-dainty face, and offered the wall a nice offset. Pleasant, but unoriginal. Outside, a man was screaming for a doctor.

I should have left earlier, but that delay of my fork was just enough to be Too Late. That man needed help, and here was a group of tough guys clomping heavily over the porch, come to cause trouble of course. The hesitation at the door was suspicious, but it _should_ have been a dead give away.

I'm getting along a little slower these days, I guess.

I was going to pay, leave a tip for Cute-Waitress and then investigate the wails that had now become distressfully quiet. One of the punks outside pushed open the door, and Cute-Waitress turned to offer a greeting. She wasn't through with the second syllable before I knew, and they peeled off a round of bullets, ripping through the opposite wall to my left.

Four of them burst in.

I was the target.

They opened fire.

I started counting.

With four semi-automatic weapons puking bullets in droves, the noise is loud enough to hurt, but I'm used to that. They each had maybe 10 rounds left– a couple hundred bullets– I lost count when I upturned the table to protect Grandpa, but I still had an estimate and that's good enough. The guy with the weedy hair was slower than the rest of them. I moved right, hopping over a table that looked more like a crescent moon (or maybe Swiss cheese?), to help Cute-Waitress and the small family. I tripped.

The punks let their fingers off the trigger long enough to see if I was dead or not. There was ketchup in my eye.

That kid dropped his gun and started crying– just bawling into his mum's arms, an' I felt bad. I thought of sitting up and wiggling my fingers at him; smile and assure him I'm still quite alive, but the punks might notice something like that.

They start laughing, busting their guts over a little spilt ketchup (in my _eye)_, but I think the weedy guy had a few more crayons in the box than the rest of'em. I don't know what he wanted to do; nudge me with his gun 'for sure,' I think. He's the only one with any small amount of ammunition left, and I didn't want that in my face, so I kindly declined and remedied that, nudging my finger against the barrel.

"Hey, hey, Girl. Don't make that _face_!! If it's about the damage, we can rebuild the _whole shop_."

That made me feel better. I decided to offer my gratitude personally, and brought my weedy friend along with me. "Oh, that's good!" I draped an arm around Weedy (I think I heard them call him Magnus, but Weedy is much better) and sidled up to the big guy. "I was _awfully_ worried."

He stared, and I thought that was slightly rude. He sniffed me, and... well, I'm not quite sure what that was. "...You reek of tomato." This made me frown, and I flaunted the offending ketchup bottle, explaining. "The moment I fell, I was wearing this on my head. Could you pay my cleaning bill as well?"

"_Naw. _I got another idea. YOU'LL HAVE TO SETTLE FOR A ONE-WAY TICKET TO _HELL_!"

Hm. I admit, it wasn't _quite_ what I'd been hoping for– and again with the gun-in-face thing? I believe I'm a fairly generous and reasonable man, so I compromised with a game of suction darts. "Hasty." I sighed. "Too hasty! _C'mon_, let's not jump to conclusions. Why don't we _discuss_ this?"

They never agree, I don't know why I keep trying.

"Wha... What the hell... Who... are you..?"

_**Wanted.** Vash the Stampede._

_Estimated Age: 24_

_Birthplace: Unknown_

_Residence: Unknown_

_Suspected in the murder of Count Revenant Vasquez and believed capable of G-grade damage. Suspect still at large._

_Bounty: $$60 billion double dollars, **dead or alive**!!_

_Note: Pacifist._


	2. two

Ex-Innocent: two.

_Oh no. Do I hafta? I always get **nervous** when I have to introduce myself._

_However, if I must...Don't you feel I'm like a peaceful hunter, continuing to chase the dragonfly of **love**?_

It's a joke, most of it. Sometimes people take me so seriously, though. Sometimes I think they even get offended, but I couldn't tell you why. It's kind of like a pseudonym; "hunter of peace, chaser of love;" it's the fiction that I slate myself behind. It makes for a nice show, anyway.

I like to try and search for anything positive in a person, and the most I could say for these punks was that they were certainly persistent in their gains. Moreover, I suppose I'm at least thankful that they cared to invest in boxers– not that they really needed to strip all their clothes. I had just wanted them to give up their weapons, but they compromised with the vast majority of their attire. Eh.

I can't help but frown at what I'm left with, though. What did they expect me to do with this stuff? I suppose... I can drop them off at the charity thrift left of the town center.

I felt my sleeve jerk and looked down to find the kid standing next to me, his face pink from embarrassment and blotchy from tears. He lets go of my sleeve and offers a damp rag– probably from Cute-Waitress. I grin, chuckling and hold out his dart gun. "Here. Thanks, that _saved_ me!!" He looks at the thing as if its some blessed artifact, but I hope his mother will wash my touch from it when they get home. I clean the decoy ketchup from myself with the cloth he gave me.

"That's quite an impressive arm. Have you lived this long without _shooting_?"

No, Grandpa– but the kid is still standing next to me, so I lie. I've lived a long time without shooting, but I _have_ shot. What Grandpa asked is true, but it's not. I've shot, I've expended countless bullets through flesh and into gritty dirt, though I hit the weapon if I can afford it. I haven't killed, per se, but I've injured. I've incapacitated, I've wounded. I don't think Grandpa realizes the guilt in that question.

"...No matter who you are, pain isn't something anyone likes, _right_? So I decided it would be _better_ to not have any casualties."

My tongue bleeds with the contradiction. Pain and casualties are not the same.

"You're an odd one. Can you really be called a _gunman_, I wonder?" Grandpa's voice is lacking of any real emotion, but he laughs. The kid laughs, and so does his mother, but they haven't seen the holster under my coat. I laugh, too.

A sequence of harsh rings skim our laughter, and Cute-Waitress gasps as she gathers herself about her and hurries into an adjoining room marked with a studded "Employee's Only" sign. Most large-town restaurants and businesses invest in telephones if they're ever presented with the offer, but I think most of the owner's only do it for show. There aren't many people you can call, so they charge domestics like us a fine price to use one.

Cute-Waitress emerged nearly half an hour later, and I didn't bother to ask her if everything was all right; I had made some obscure joke a minute ago, and Grandpa was laughing so hard I thought he was going to hack up a few hairballs. She smiled and bustled about the place, tidying and fretting over the ruined furniture and walls. She seemed nervous.

..._You're an odd one. Can you really be called a gunman, I wonder_? I have to smile at Grandpa's words. He had meant it as a joke, I know, but for some reason it just didn't settle right with me. Sometimes it's just easier to laugh, I guess. It distracted me from Cute-Waitress.

"Sorry about this."

How inconvenient.

I'm not laughing anymore; I dunno, maybe it's a kind of dying chuckle or something. I don't have to look to know she has a gun trained on me– not that I have eyes on the backs of my ears or anything, but there's a soft _click-cln-clink_; her unsteady hand chattering the gun at my back. People are starting to show up outside. I think I know who called earlier.

The Sheriff, or maybe even the Mayor himself. Checking up on what all the ruckus had been. Cute-Waitress stuttering, twining the phone's long cord in her grasp. So nervous. I can just imagine her nearly sobbing my name into the phone, asking what she should do.

_Keep him there_, of course. _We'll have backup there soon_.

Only, the so-called backup was turning out to be a militia made up of damn near every capable arms-wielding citizen in this whole city. I can hear them outside, a clumsy treble of voices; some shouting, others talking very loudly. I raise my hands and pressure my heel. My boot audibly tread the floor as I turned to face her.

"We talked it over at the town meeting and came to a decision. Half will go to the city's finances and the other half will be split up amongst everyone." A pause. "I'm very sorry about this... Mr. Vash."

She's gotten a better grasp on the gun, muffling the chatter; but she was holding it too close to herself. She looks too dainty to be holding a gun. She _is_ too dainty. She isn't really sorry though; I can see it in her eyes. She's scared, and that's very different from being sorry for something like this. I thought about telling her this, but didn't.

That mother had grabbed her son, holding him by his arm. He was grasping tight onto his dart gun. I stood still, trying not to stare at the mass of people outside, waiting for her to take the kid away from here. She didn't.

_Damnit. This is so dangerous._

"I'm sorry." Cute-Waitress. She said it again, and again I didn't believe her. Her thumb pushed gently against the hammer; her finger twitched. I needed a plan. I didn't _have_ a plan. I _never_ have a plan.

_Pop_! A dart shot past Cute-Waitress, but didn't come close to hitting her. It bonked against the window in a manner that was extremely anti-climactic for this situation. The mother grabbed her son, barking his name furiously. She actually sounded scared. Cute-Waitress yelped and her finger squeezed. The kick from the gun, small as it was, made her yelp again, louder this time. She had never fired a gun before; the jerk threw off her aim drastically. The lead bullet burrowed into the wall.

It isn't a plan so much as it is a distraction– but a distraction is still something to work with. They were all too startled by the gunshot to do much more than yell after me as I ran; and even her shout was muffled by her hand.

That militia of townsfolk was distracted too. Enough, at least, for me to get a few yarz behind me before a bullet pounded the dirt beside my foot. Damn. They were rousing from their little daze and starting to realize I'm not behind that window anymore. This presents a few problems on my behalf, now. Not that I'm out of shape or anything, it's just that I really hate running. It's so _boring_. Two bullets sped by my right, and another nicked the shoulder of my coat.

A ladder. I grunted, bumping my knuckles hard against the thick metal as I seized the bars.


End file.
